Starting over

#50 Keeping a Low Profile

Naruto POV

I was again deep in thought after Yoroi had fought it threw all my ideas about Orochimaru's plans overboard. At first I had thought that they didn't fight because they weren't ordinary genin and that they were some sort of infiltration unit that was to attack once Orochimaru started his plan, but I discarded this idea once Yoroi had started to fight. Then I thought that maybe they had been sent to test Sasuke, since I knew that Orochimaru would probably still be hunting for a pair of sharingan eyes. But this plan too didn't seem logical since Orochimaru could have just sent a spy to watch Sasuke in the exams exams. I almost forgot that it was my turn to fight, Temari poked me in the side to get my attention and pointed down where Hayate and the girl from the sound team waited for me. The girl had an annoyed look on her face as I jumped down with an apologetic look on my face. Gaara, Temari and I had decided that we would not show off in our fights as to keep our abilities a secret so I took out my sword and looked at Kin with focused eyes, once the proctor started the match. I charged at the girl at an average speed and swung my sword at her, which she blocked with a normal kunai. I again swung at her but this time I pushed a bit of chakra into the blade. My opponent again blocked with a kunai. Her eyes went wide when my sword sliced through her kunai without any real resistance. She jumped away still holding the hilt of her kunai. I managed to cut her across the shoulder with my next swing causing her to scream while she dodged my next few attempts to hit her. Once she had gotten away from me she held her shoulder and glared at me. I just looked at her and charged again. This time however I switched it up yet again. Once the girl had dodged my sword I brought my knee up and hit her in the stomach. The girl went down and I put my sword to her throat, forcing her to surrender. I went back up to the balcony and put an arm around Temari who congratulated me on winning my fight.

The next fight was between Choji and Neji. Neji had the upper hand from the start. He closed his opponents tenketsu points one after another, causing Choji to become slower. After two minutes Choji was forced to forfeit since he almost couldn't move anymore. Neji came back up while Choji went with the medics to have his chakra points reopened.

Gaara and the third member of the sound team were the two fighters in the last match of the preliminations. Gaara disappeared in a cloud of sand and reappeared next to the proctor. His opponent attempted to jump down from the balcony. But when he hit the ground, he didn't land softly but crashed down and stayed lying down, earning a few chuckles from me and Temari as well as some gasps from the other genins. Gaara just watched while Hayate Gekko helped the genin up. After the proctor had made sure that Gaara's opponent was ready to fight, he started the match. It was clear that Gaara had the advantage since the sound genin had trouble dodging Gaara's sand and apparently had hurt his left leg, since he avoided putting pressure on it. Gaara again sent his sand after his opponent and chased him to the left forcing him to use his hurt leg. The redhead had yet to move since the match had started, while his sand closed its grip around his victim. Before Gaara could hurt the sound genin, the boy cried out that he forfeited which caused Gaara to recall his sand.

Then it was time for the last fight, between a spandex wearing black haired boy called Lee and a guy wearing a long coat and sunglasses called Shino. Before the fight could begin however Lee broke down and coughed up blood. He and his teammate Tenten were in a pretty rough state, when they had gotten to the arena, with Lee being obviously more injured than his partner, who had spent most of her time before her match, taking care of his wounds.

After the hurt shinobi had been brought to the hospital the proctor called the remaining shinobi into the arena.

"Number 19, since you have no opponent, you automatically, advance.", he said earning a few discontent shouts about how unfair that practice was, the same shouts he had gotten, when he declared the opponents of Kabuto and Misumi to have won the fight.

After everyone had calmed down and he had given an explanation saying that the numbers were totally random and that everyone could have been the lucky one to get paired up with Lee or any of the other shinobi that instantly forfeited,he continued. Shino, the boy who had gotten lucky, still received a few angry glares at the end of it, but he didn't seem to be fazed by it.

"Alright, you all advanced to the finals. The fighters of each fight will be determined at random. The finals will be held in exactly a month. Use this time to train and to prepare for your fights, these fights will determine if you are worthy of becoming a chunin so give it your best.", Hayate Gekko recommended.

Then he led us out of the arena and back into the city.

"Well what are we going to do until the finals?", Temari asked while we three walked around the village. "I think it would be best if we made sure that our skills don't get rusty and other than that I think I will investigate a bit about Kabuto and Orochimaru and their plan.", Gaara said with his monotone voice. "Yeah that would be good, I don't think it would be good if Temari and I investigate too, since it would raise suspicion if we were to be caught, which is more likely when we three are snooping around.", I explained putting an arm around Temari's waist. She smiled and winked at me without Gaara noticing to which I smiled. She had the same thought as I, thinking that we could spend the free time together. Gaara had nodded at my explanation and we changed our direction towards our hotel, since the sun was already setting. "What days will we use to train?", I asked my teammates. "Maybe every other day, that way I have enough time to investigate. Tomorrow I would say that we rest and recover from the fighting, although we didn't have to fight much, we still spend a bit of chakra.", Gaara proposed. "Alright, then it's settled, the day after tomorrow we start training again.", Temari exclaimed smiling.

In the meantime we had arrived at the hotel. Temari and I said goodnight to Gaara and went into our room.

"What do you want to do tomorrow?", I asked my girlfriend while we were changing into our pyjamas. She stopped and turned around wearing only her bra and her panties. "I don't know, maybe you could show me around a bit? After all you have to have a few places that you like in this village.", she suggested with a wink throwing on an old t-shirt and climbing in the bed. I chuckled, putting a t-shirt on myself and climbing in the bed to my girlfriend under the blanket. Temari rolled over to me and pressed her lips against mine and put her arms around my neck. I smiled and put my arms around her waist pulling her even closer to me.

We smiled at each other as we broke our kiss and quickly fell asleep in each others arms.